


Friends Like These

by Rumaan



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Matchmaking, Meddling Friends, Romance, background Eva/Noora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Elias is fed up of watching his sister and best friend dance around each other so he calls in some back-up.





	Friends Like These

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @ur-nitemare's prompt: balloon squad insists on going to some haunted house and drag sana with themselves, but in that moment everyone knows sana and yousef have crush on each other but these two are convinced otherwise so they decide to leave them alone in the house and run away and hope they will somehow get together.
> 
> Simone thought she was being lame with this prompt but little did she know how much I adore meddling friends and dumb matchmaking attempts so this grew into a larger fic!
> 
> Set in Halloween in Sana's third year (ie now). Stuff with Pepsi Squad and the bus happened in S4, but Sana's friends never met Elias and the boys and Sana and Yousef didn't act on their feelings for each other!

The ping of Sana’s phone grabbed her attention and she put down the German translation she was trying to figure out before picking up her phone. Her brow furrowed when she saw the message from Noora.

**Noora:** _Sana! Do you know someone called Elias?_

Well, yeah she did know an Elias, but she deliberately kept her brother and her friends far away from each other. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen if they mixed, but she was sure it wouldn’t be anything good. She obviously wasn’t going to say that to Noora, though.

**Sana:** _Huh? There’s that guy Elias who goes to our school._

**Noora:** _No, not Jonas’ friend._

**Noora:** _I got a friend request and a message from an Elias Bakkoush._

**Noora:** _He claims to be your brother and has invited us all to a Halloween event._

Throwing her phone down on her cover, Sana got up and stormed out of her room towards Elias’ bedroom. She didn’t bother knocking on his door, instead barging in with her hands on her hips.

Elias looked up from where he was messing about on his laptop and said sarcastically, “Ever heard of knocking?”

“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” she snapped.

“What?”

“Did you really contact a friend of mine on Facebook and invite her to a party.”

Her brother at least has the sense to look at little embarrassed and he scratched his cheek and said, “Er…yeah I did.”

“Seriously? What possessed you to do such a thing?”

“Well, you said you wouldn’t come with us.”

“So you go behind my back, stalk my Facebook page and try and befriend one of my friends?”

“When you put it like that it sounds bad. I just want you to come to this event. It will be fun.”

“And how many times have I told you: I don’t party with my brother!”

“Come on,” Elias said frustrated. “I don’t understand your need to keep your friends and your family so separate. What do you think is going to happen?”

Her face crumpled a little. Sana tried her hardest to keep her face stoic and uncaring but she couldn’t help how it dropped. It didn’t make sense, not now, two years after she had first met these girls and they had actually stood by her through all the drama last spring, but she was still haunted by her experiences at Urra and nervous about how if she actually introduced her friends to her family then they would think she was too different – too Muslim and too Moroccan – and not want to hang out with her anymore.

Of course Elias cottoned on. For all that he pulled dumb shit like befriending her friends on Facebook behind her back, he cared for her deeply and he knew her moods.

“Hey,” he said, getting up from his desk, coming over to her and putting his arm around her shoulders. He steered her to the bed and they sat down. “What’s going through your mind right now?”

She shrugged and looked down at the carpet. “I just-” she started to say before trailing off. Drawing in a deep breath she opened up to her brother and put her fears out. “I just don’t want them to think I’m _too_ different, you know.”

He nodded. “And you’re worried that if they see you among family then all those differences will be highlighted and they won’t want to be your friends anymore.”

“You don’t need to say it. You don’t need to tell me how stupid I am.”

“First off, you’re not stupid. Don’t tell Bilal but you’re the smartest Bakkoush of us all. And secondly, you’re awesome as a Norwegian Moroccan Muslim girl and if your friends can’t see that then they are the stupid ones!”

His words had her chest swelling in affection for him. No one could disarm her the way Elias could. He always knew how to get through to her and for the first time she was not stressed about the prospect of her friends mixing with her family.

Scrunching her nose up, Sana said, “Is this just a ploy to get me come to that stupid haunted house thing you want me to go to so desperately?”

“Before I say anything, did it work?”

“Ugh,” she said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes. Okay, I’ll come!”

“No, my words weren’t a ploy. They were the truth and you can bring your friends or not. It’s up to you.”

“I’ll bring them. No point in delaying the evitable now Noora knows about you. She’ll tell the others and then Vilde will make it her job to track you down. But don’t think these kinds of tactics will work in the future. I’ll find the biggest spider in the garden and put it in your room if you even think about pulling a stunt like this again.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me!” she said, getting up from his bed and heading back to her room.

Her phone was a mess of notifications when she got back – all from Noora demanding to know where she’d gone.

**Sana:** _Yeah, I know an Elias Bakkoush and yes, he’s my dumbass brother._

**Noora:** _!!!!_

**Noora:** _Is he the one engaged to the hijab police?_

Sana winced. She’d managed to patch things up with Jamilla last spring. In fact, her sister-in-law had been something of a rock for Sana during the rocky period with Sara and the Pepsi Max squad. Her good relationship with Jamilla now made her regret how she’d spoken of her in the past to the girls.

**Sana:** _No, my older brother is engaged to Jamilla._

**Noora:** _So the haunted house party he’s invited us too looks fun! Can we go?_

**Sana:** _Yeah, I guess we can go!_

**Noora:** _Woo! Going to tell the girls now._

\----------

Elias waited a couple of minutes after his sister left before he called Even.

“That was nearly a disaster!”

_“Hello to you, too.”_

“Hi. Tell Isak his information was good.”

_“You contacted Noora?”_

“Yeah. Sana was pissed but she’s coming to the haunted house now.”

_“Operation Hook Yousef Up is a-go!”_

“How many times have I told you we’re not calling it that. She’s my sister!”

He could hear Even laughing down the phone and rolled his eyes at just how extra his friend was. It had been great to reconnect with Even over the summer. To see him so happy and healthy and in love with a great boyfriend. Reconnecting had led to them all hanging out again like the old days and soon Even was back as an integral part of their squad and it hadn’t taken him more than week to figure out just how pathetic Sana and Yousef were being with their mutual pining.

_“So we’re good. This plan should work.”_

“Well don’t say that! You’re bound to jinx it. Plus with these two! I thought Yousef would finally get the courage to ask Sana out when he got back from Turkey. But nope.”

Really, it made no sense just why Yousef was dragging his heels on this. Elias had understood why Yousef hadn’t made a move last spring and instead had just stared longingly after his sister. Yousef had thought he wasn’t a Muslim and he knew that there was nothing that could be built with Sana out of that. However, his time in Turkey had brought Yousef closer to his faith and he’d come back believing once more and being a hardass on the rest of them for being slack about going to Friday prayers.

 _“Yeah, he really has zero game. Good job he has friends who will intervene for him._ ”

“If this plan doesn’t work then nothing will!”

_“Don’t worry! It’s my plan. Of course it will work!”_

“Taking desperate to another level?”

_“It’s become something of a motto. And, crucially, it’s worked before.”_

Elias was still sceptical, but he was at his wit’s end when it came to his best friend and his sister so he was prepared to try anything to get them together. Including this desperate ploy.

\---------

“I’m so excited about this Halloween party. I’ve never been to a haunted house before,” Vilde said with that high pitched squeak she got when she was excited.

“It’ll beat any party at Nissen with the Pepsi Max girls,” Eva said, throwing a glare across the cafeteria at the group of girls who had caused so much damage to Sana last year. Sana always felt bad at how personally Eva had taken those events, feeling responsible for the other girl falling out with her friends once more.

However, when she’d once brought this up to Jamilla, her sister-in-law had been quick to point out that Sana wasn’t responsible for how those other girls behaved and that Eva was showing the kind of loyalty that Sana herself would and why didn’t she think she was worthy of this kind of loyalty? It was taking Sana a lot of work to pull herself out of the automatic assumption that she wasn’t good enough for her friends to stand behind and she was grateful that Jamilla was there to point out her double standards and remind her that she was worth the same care and consideration that she showed to her friends.

“I wonder if any of them are hot. Sana?” Vilde asked.

“Huh?” Sana responded.

“Your brother’s friends. Are they hot? Your brother is.”

For a moment she froze unsure how to answer but Yousef flashed into her mind. He was definitely hot but she didn’t want anyone to know she thought that. “Why does it matter? You’re dating Magnus.”

“Well it’s always good to meet new interesting and handsome boys.”

Dread built up in her stomach, roiling and bubbling away causing her to feel itchy and anxious. She couldn’t place why, but she didn’t want any of her friends to find her brother or his friends attractive.

 _Because you don’t want them to find Yousef attractive!_ a voice in her head said and she knew it was the truth but she didn’t dare delve too closely into why. She had a crush on him, but most days she attempted to ignore it. She didn’t want it to become too obvious especially when Yousef was always so sweet and attentive. Letting him know how she felt about him would only cause him to feel awkward around her.

“They’re immature assholes and are you planning on breaking up with Magnus?”

“No!” Vilde said emphatically. “But not everyone is in a relationship.”

“You are and Eva and Noora are dating each other.”

“Chris is single.”

Chris looked up from the yoghurt she was eating. “Don’t bring me into this.”

“Plus Chris said she’s saving herself for Terry Jeffords as only he appreciates yoghurt like she does,” Sana pointed out.

Chris high fived her as Noora snorted in amusement.

Vilde looked irritated at how recalcitrant Sana was being. “There’s no harm in asking if they are handsome or not,” she said a little huffily.

“Whether they are or not,” Eva said clearly looking to diffuse the stand-off. “The event looks fun.”

“Where is being held?” Chris asked Sana.

Shrugging, she replied, “Some film buddies of Mikael are hosting it, I think.”

“Do we go in costume?” Vilde asked, her excitement back.

“Probably. I’ll ask Elias to make sure.”

\-------------

Yousef looked around at his friends in confusion. He had no idea what they were talking about as apparently they had changed plans without telling him.

“Hang on!” he said. “Aren’t we going to Mika’s party?”

“Oh yeah, no,” Elias said with the kind of nonchalance that only he could pull off. “We got a better offer.”

“Since when?”

“Did we not tell you? I’m sure we put it in the group chat,” Mikael said with the sort of mischievous gleam in his eye that Yousef had learnt not to trust.

“Yeah, no, you didn’t. Any reason why?”

“Must have forgotten,” Adam said with a shrug.

Alarm bells were ringing in Yousef’s head now. Plans were always shared in the main group chat. He couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t. However, he wasn’t going to bring too much attention to his suspicions.

“So where are we going?”

“A friend of Mikael is turning his cabin into a haunted house,” Mutta replied.

“A cabin in Oslo?”

“They’re in the film industry,” Mikael explained. “So it’s not like a _cabin_ cabin but one that was built for a film and he’s got access to it this weekend.”

“Oh,” Yousef replied.

That all made sense so he wasn’t sure just why they had hidden these changes of plans from it. It meant that there was something not being said. It didn’t take long for him to find out just why.

“So Sana and her friends are coming?” Mutta asked.

“Yeah,” Elias said with a little glance towards Yousef.

The secrecy all made sense now. The boys were weird around him when it came to Sana now and he regretted opening up to them last spring about his feelings for her. He had been toying with the idea of actively pursuing her and had wanted to say something to Elias first at least. You didn’t ask out your best friend’s sister without at least giving them a head’s up. Elias had been fine about it, doing nothing more than shrugging and telling him to make sure he was serious before he made move. And the thing was, he _had_ been serious, but then the realisation that Islam was such an important part in Sana’s life and he hadn’t been Muslim had made him back off. They wouldn’t have been able to get married and he knew that Sana wasn’t the type to casually date and, if he was being honest, he’d been scared that he would fall so deep in love with her that he wouldn’t be able to see himself marrying anyone else. So he’d backed off and left it. There had been some snorts of amusement from the boys and some frustrated sighs from Elias whenever Yousef would let his gaze linger for too long on Sana, but when he’d explained why he’d left it the boys had been understanding. There were some things love couldn’t conquer and his lack of the faith was one of them.

But then he’d gone to Turkey ostensibly to get some distance from Sana and get past his pesky feelings for her. Yet once he was there things had clicked for him. The sense of being lost and unsure about the future had dissipated when he sat with his grandma and listened to her teach Suras from Al-Qur’an to his little cousins. Listening to her recite had brought a peace to his soul that he hadn’t felt since all the trouble with Even had begun. Then the Hei Briskeby video with Even in it had dropped. It had been weird sitting in Turkey and watching his friends with their former friend so chill and happy. There had been no weird vibes between them and Yousef had wondered just how much of his version of events had actually happened and how many had been purely down to assumptions. It hadn’t escaped his notice how close Mikael and Adam were becoming – so perhaps Mikael’s reaction to Even had nothing to do with Islam and everything to do with coming to terms with his own sexuality.

So what did that mean for him and his own relationship with Islam?

Yousef had spent the rest of his holiday finding out. Talking with his grandma, going to the mosque with his grandfather and uncles and talking with the Imam there. There had been none of the judgement that he’d expected towards his questions. Instead, he’d been met with patience and understanding and it had cemented just how hasty he’d been in deciding that he wasn’t Muslim because there had clearly been something stopping him from turning fully away from the _Deen_ by drinking alcohol and eating pork.

He’d come back from Turkey with a new found sense of belief in his place in Islam and he knew that the boys didn’t understand why he was holding back from asking Sana out now. He wasn’t really sure himself why he was. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to actually do it. Perhaps it was because now there was no excuse for her turning him down. He couldn’t put it on the fact that she was Muslim and he wasn’t. Now, if she said no then it would be because she didn’t like _him_ and he wasn’t sure he could face that rejection.

But now they were actually going to a party with her. Sana never came out with Elias and his friends. He lost count of the amount of times Elias had invited her to come along to a party and she’d refused. Perhaps this would be his chance to go for it.

\------------

Noora frowned as her phone rang with an unknown number and she almost didn’t answer it. She hated picking up when she didn’t know who was on the other end of the phone. But something in her gut told her to answer the call so with a little shrug, she picked the call up.

“Hello?”

_“Hi. Is that Noora?”_

“Yeah, speaking.”

_“Hey. This is Elias, Sana’s brother.”_

Poking a dozing Eva awake so that she had someone to be confused with about why Sana’s brother was calling her.

“Er…hi. Sana’s not with me.”

_“Yeah, I know. I’m calling about her not to talk to her.”_

“You want to talk to me about Sana?”

Her question had Eva perk up immediately and her girlfriend mouthed, “Who is it?”

“Sana’s brother,” she whispered quietly.

Eva’s eyebrows rose and she leaned her head against Noora’s so she could hear what Elias was saying.

_“Yeah. I wanted to let you know that this haunted house party is a front.”_

“What?”

_“Has Sana mentioned anyone called Yousef to you?”_

“No.”

_“That sounds like my sister. Anyway, she and my friend Yousef like each other but they are both pathetic and neither one of them will make the first move and just ask the other one out, so my friends and I have devised a plan to basically lock them inside this cabin until they are forced to confront their feelings and each other.”_

“Hang on. Sana _likes_ a guy?”

Noora probably should react to the actual plan rather than the news that Sana was crushing on a boy, but she couldn’t help but be stuck on that fact. Sana never talked about liking boys, although, to be fair, it wasn’t as if any of them had ever actually asked her if she liked someone. She wondered what he was like.

_“Yeah, why? Should she not like a guy?”_

“No, no. Of course she could…can…-”

Cutting off her mess of a sentence, she grimaced at Eva and then felt bad for sounding so weird about Sana liking a boy. She was still a teenage girl even if she did choose to live her life differently to the majority of Norwegian teens. She attempted to rescue her reaction.

“It’s great that she likes someone – she’s just never even hinted at having a crush, that’s all.”

_“Cool. Anyway, I’m calling you to tell you the plan so you and the girls can be on board.”_

Wanting to know exactly who Yousef was, Noora came up with some quick thinking so could get an idea of just who Sana was crushing on.

“Hold up. Before I agree to help you out with any plan, I want to know who this guy is. He might not be good enough for Sana.”

_“I’m her brother, I think you can trust me on this.”_

“A brother I only just heard about the other day and who went behind Sana’s back to befriend me. Why should I trust you?”

_“Oh my God. Now I know why you and Sana are friends.”_

Eva tapped her arm and grabbed the laptop from the coffee table and got up Facebook and pointed to it with a meaningful tilt of her head in its direction. Grinning at how great her girlfriend was, Noora gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“What’s his name? I want to look him up on Facebook.”

She heard a laugh down the end of the line.

_“Oh, okay. I got you. You want to see who Sana has a crush on. Fair enough, I totally get that. His name is Yousef Acar.”_

Smiling at how being quick witted seemed to be a Bakkoush personality trait, Noora leaned across Eva and typed the name into the search bar. The picture brought up a cute guy with dark eyes and bangs of dark hair that framed his face.

_“So while you go through his photos, let me tell you-”_

“Who said anything about going through his photos?”

_“Please! As if that’s not what you wanted to do.”_

Noora had to laugh at that. “Yeah, we totally wanted to do that!”

_“We?”_

“My girlfriend is here, too.”

_“Oh Eva right?”_

“So Sana tells you things about us at least.”

_“Yep, she’s not ashamed of you as she is me.”_

She laughed again. She liked Elias before actually even meeting him. Plus, he was opening up a whole different side of Sana and one that she was curious to get to know. Sana was so intensely private, but maybe now she would feel more comfortable showing them more about herself. Noora had never had a family in the true sense of the word so she loved hearing the warmth in Elias’ voice when he spoke about his sister. She wondered what the Bakkoush family was like and if once they met Elias if Sana would introduce them to the rest of her family. She now knew that she had two brothers rather than one and she was definitely curious about Sana’s parents, who had brought up such a fierce, intelligent and beautiful daughter.

“So you were going to tell us about Yousef.”

Eva was scrolling through his pictures and Noora had to admit that if she’d been asked to describe a guy Sana was into it wouldn’t be this boy. He looked so soft and sweet in his photos and Eva aww-ed as they came across a picture of him with a bunch of kindergarten kids. Instead, she would have imagined someone as tough and biting as Sana herself could be.

_“Okay, so Yousef. He’s been my best friend since we started elementary school together. He works in a kindergarten and loves to get his ass kicked in basketball by Sana. He’s been pining embarrassingly over Sana for a couple of years now, but only admitted it to me last spring and now he’s pining and failing to actually ask her out. It’s reached such pathetic levels that I’m forced to intervene. ”_

“That’s all very sweet, but you’ve said nothing about her liking him.”

_“Yeah, well, it’s not one sided. Come on, you think I would push my sister in a relationship with him if she didn’t like him back?”_

“Yeah, fair enough. I don’t know you, but I doubt you’d do that.”

 _“Exactly! Besides, she likes him back just as much. She’s all smiley around him, which as you know is_ not _Sana’s style. She even let him teach her how to peel carrots and she_ hates _being told that she’s doing something wrong.”_

Noora got stuck on the image of Sana smiling a lot around this boy and she liked it. If someone could get her friend to smile lots then he had to be a good thing. Perhaps his soft personality was exactly what tough Sana needed. She didn’t mention this though.

“He taught her to peel carrots?!”

_“Yep, that’s the level of adorableness that I’m forced to endure on a regular basis.”_

“Okay, he sounds good enough for our Sana. What do you want us to do?”

_“First off, costumes. It would be cute if they matched._

“Why?!”

_“I don’t know. It just would, okay! Do you guys have a theme?”_

“A theme?”

_“Yeah a theme! Don’t you dress up as a squad?”_

“No…”

_“Wow! What’s the point of going out as a squad if you don’t have a cool costume theme? Anyway, that actually helps because our theme is…”_

\--------

“Fairy tales?” Sana said sceptically. “We’re all doing matching costumes and as fairy tales? Are you sure you’re Noora or did some kind of Freaky Friday incident happen and you’re actually Vilde in disguise?”

“Hey!” Noora and Vilde both objected together.

But Sana ignored them and instead turned to Eva and said wickedly, “Haven’t you kissed them both? Is there a difference in how Noora kisses today?”

Eva snorted and Noora rolled her eyes and said, “ _Anyway_ , as I was saying: I thought it would be cute to do a fairy tale theme. I’m going as Alice!”

“I’m dressing up as Ariel!” Eva said.

“You have such mermaid hair, babe,” Noora said giving her a kiss.

“Oh, I want to be a selkie,” Chris said.

Vilde wrinkled up her nose. “A seal woman?”                            

“Yeah, think how cool a costume you can make out of that.”

“Well, I want to be Cinderella and maybe find my prince charming,” Vilde said with a dreamy smile.

“Again…Magnus?” Sana pointed out.

“He’d make a really cute Prince Charming. I wonder if I can persuade him to wear tights.”

Sana shook her head to dislodge the image of Magnus in tights that flashed into her mind.

“What about you, Sana?” Eva asked.

“Hmm…I don’t know.”

“Ooh, you would make a perfect Little Red Riding Hood!” Noora declared.

“Yes!” Chris agreed. “You’d slay in red.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, Sana, I think I even have a red cloak you could borrow,” Eva said.

She scrunched up her nose, but she couldn’t actually think of another costume right now and all the girls were looking at her eagerly as if just waiting for her to agree. Rolling her eyes, she said, “I guess I could go as Little Red Riding Hood – but any wolf comes near me and I’ll chop them up with my own axe.”

Eva discretely nudged Noora but Sana still caught sight of it and frowned. The mischievous look on Eva’s face partnered with how angelic and innocent Noora was behaving meant that the two of them were up to something. However, she knew there was no point in calling them out on it because they would just pretend that they had no clue what she was talking about. Chris and Vilde looked normal so whatever it was, Noora and Eva were concocting without the other two girls.

It had to have something to do with the matching Halloween costumes because there was no way Noora would naturally come up with that plan. It wasn’t her style at all.

\---------

Yousef turned suspicious eyes on Elias when he saw Sana and her friends round the road into view. Her costume was the one that jumped out even from afar. Partly because Sana rarely wore colours and the scarlet red cloak and matching scarlet hijab made her stand out. He could see even from this distance that she looked beautiful and the nerves that rested anxiously in his stomach tightened into even larger knots as he looked down at his own furry hands.

The theme that Elias had decided on for them as a group now made so much more sense, especially as Elias probably knew what Sana was planning to dress up as. Was there going to be some weird elaborate plan to have someone mistake them for boyfriend and girlfriend because their costumes inadvertently matched?

Then the quiet nature of the cabin they were standing outside dawned on him. From the outside, it looked suitably creepy with copious amounts of cobwebs, fake spiders and bats floating around with only some dimly lit spookily carved pumpkins dotted about to illuminate the place.

Mikael had been right about this being the perfect place to host a haunted house party. It was set a little way off from the road and the rest of the houses and in a weird thicket of trees that Mikael explained had been planted for the horror movie they’d filmed there the other month. All in all, it looked like the local evil child stealing witch or serial killer would live in such a building.

However, there were no other people around and no noise coming out from the cabin.

With a frown, he turned to Mikael and said, “Where’s everyone else?”

“What do you mean?” Elias jumped in sharply.

“It’s a party. How come there isn’t anyone else around and how come there’s no noise from the house.”

Mikael let out a slightly nervous sounding laugh before he said, “Oh, the cabin is soundproofed. You know, make sure filming late at night and stuff doesn’t bother any neighbours.”

“Oh,” Yousef said. “But the lack of people?”

“It’s an invite only event and they give you a certain time to get here by so groups go in one by one.”

“Yeah,” Adam interjected. “The party is up in the attic. You make your way through the haunted part of the house towards the party.”

“Like that Buffy episode,” Mutta said eagerly. “You know where they get locked inside the frat house.”

“Shut up,” Elias said punching Mutta on the arm and giving him a significant look that Yousef couldn’t decipher.

“What?” Mutta asked defensively. “It’s a good episode.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Mikael interrupted. “That’s why you can’t hear any noise or see anyone.”

“Okay,” Yousef said. It made sense. However, there was something about this whole night that wasn’t making sense to him – he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

But then the girls were there and Yousef was struggling to breath with just how stunning Sana looked up close. The vibrant red looked great on her and the matching lipstick made her look so kissable that it took all of his self-control not to reach out and pull her into his arms.

It was ridiculous just how bad his crush on her had become. It was also paralysing. The realisation of how deep his feelings already were already engaged that he was scared of even communicating them to Sana in case she didn’t return them. He would be so heartbroken if she turned him down that pining from afar had become easier.

“Hi,” Sana said and he couldn’t help but allow his eyes to linger on her. She looked radiant in that colour and the cold air had turned her cheeks and tip of her nose a little red.

Then Elias stepped forward, all big smiles and charm as usual. “Hey,” he said with a grin as he looked around at Sana’s friends. “I’m Elias.”

“Chris, Eva, Noora and Vilde this is my dumbass brother, Elias. His friends Mutta, Mikael, Adam and Yousef.”

He wanted to believe that her voice really had softened a little when she said his name, but he knew it was nothing but wishful thinking.

“Yousef?” the girl Sana had pointed to as Chris said. “You’re Yousef.”

“Yeah,” he said a little confused at how all four girls were staring at him as if analysing him closely.

The impact of four sets of eyes watching him was a little unnerving and he couldn’t help but look at Sana to see why her friends were so fixated on him. However, she looked as confused as he did and a little disgruntled, but he couldn’t figure out why.

“Nice costume,” the mermaid, Eva, said.

“Thanks,” he replied although it came out more as a question.

“So,” Elias said cheerfully. “Shall we go in?”

The cabin was quiet even once they’d opened the front door and the decorations weren’t as elaborate as he’d imagined they would be from the ones outside.

“Split up?” Noora asked. “Eva, Elias and I will take that room.”

Vilde pointed to the other side and said, “Chris and I will go with Mutta and Mikael and check that room.”

“Sana and Yousef, you okay to go through to the back?” Elias asked.

“Aren’t we meant to all go through together?” Sana asked.

“Quicker this way,” Mikael said. “I’d rather get to the party.”

“Yeah, me too,” Chris chimed in.

Sana shrugged and looked at Yousef who could do nothing but smile and gesture for her to go first. Although perhaps the chivalrous thing would be to go in front of her as this was meant to be a haunted house.

However, they hadn’t taken many steps into the back room before they heard a stampede of feet and the front door slamming shut.

“Huh?” Sana said.

They both turned back to the front of the house.

“Chris? Noora?” Sana called out.

Yousef added his voice, “Elias?”

No voices greeted them. Frowning, he strode to the front door and tried to pull it open but it was locked.

“We’re going to the actual party now,” Elias muffled voice said from behind the door. “We’ll be back in a couple of hours after the pair of you have talked.”

“Elias?!” Sana called out sharply. “What the fuck! You’re locking us in a house?”

“There’s dinner in the back,” Noora shouted through the door.

Sana pounded on the door. “Open it up!”

“No,” Elias said stubbornly. “You need to talk. I’m tired of how you keep dancing around each other.”

Yousef knew that he should be angry. His best friend had basically just locked him into a house with his little sister and demanded that he finally actually admit his feelings for her. But Elias’ words about how they were dancing around each other had his hopes rising. Did that mean that Sana had feelings for him too and that he’d been worrying about asking her out for no reason? His chest swelled at the prospect.

\--------------

Sana banged futilely one last time on the door. There was no response so she presumed that her brother and her traitorous friends had left her locked in a cabin with Yousef.

So far she had managed to block that part of the whole thing out. It seemed incomprehensible to her why Elias and the girls would lock her inside a house with him. Then little things that had been niggling at her for a couple of days started to click into place. Why would her brother ever think it was okay to go behind her back and invite her friends to a party without her permission? Elias wasn’t that person and he had always respected her privacy. How come Noora had suddenly wanted matching costumes? They had never gone into that as a group. She’d noticed that Yousef was wearing some kind of wolf theme as soon as they’d arrived but it hadn’t actually stuck out as Elias was a vampire, Mikael a mummy and the boys other variations on classic Halloween theme costumes. She’d thought it was nothing more than their theme for the year. But as she looked down at her scarlet cape and the stupid basket that she was carrying and then turned around to face Yousef, she realised just how conniving her friends had actually been.

They were matching!

And he was watching her with a tender concern on his face that her breath hitching in her chest. What had Elias said? That they had been dancing around their feelings for each other. Sana had been so sure that there was no chance that her brother’s handsome best friend could return her feelings that she had never really examined their interactions. But the look that Yousef was currently giving her was causing her heart to race.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a low voice. “I can blow up all their phones to get you out of here if you need.”

“I’m pretty sure they’ll have them on silence.”

“I could try breaking the door down?”

Sana pushed on it again. Despite the dilapidated nature of the look of the cabin, the door was sturdy. “I think you’re more likely to break your shoulder.”

“Anything for you, girl, especially if you really want to get out of her.”

She grinned then and felt the heat rush into her cheeks. How had she missed the sweet way he spoke to her or just how telling his words were?

“Perhaps we should go and check out this food that Noora promised?”

“I don’t have any high hopes if the boys were put in charge of that!”

Laughing, she said, “Our best bet is Chris. She would make sure it was good _and_ halal.”

“Let’s make du’a that Chris sorted out the food then,” Yousef said, amused.

Once they had walked through to the backroom, Sana didn’t need to be told that Vilde had been in charge of decorations. It looked like something straight out of a romance catalogue for Valetine’s Day rather than for Halloween. Cheeks burning, she looked rather helplessly up at Yousef and saw that he had his eyes closed in mortification.

Opening them, he turned to look at her and said, “Do you think our friends are trying to tell us something?”

“Maybe that they want to die,” she replied and then felt bad as his face dropped so she added in a rush, “I didn’t mean it like that. I just...This is a lot, right? Like locking us in a cabin and having it look like cupid vomited all over the place.”

Yousef’s eyes met hers then and there was an intense expression in them. He stepped towards her, closing the gap between them to a few centimetres. She saw his chest expand as he obviously drew in a deep breath. “I like you, Sana. I’ve liked you for a while now.”

Her heart was pounding so hard that she thought it was in danger of bursting out of her chest. “A while?”

“At least a year – maybe longer.”

Struggling to comprehend his words, she couldn’t help but look puzzled as she sat down at the table clothed table and said, “Wait what?”

“Yeah and Elias and the boys know. Have known for about six months now.”

Sana knew she was staring at him as if he’d grown two heads but none of this was making any sense. She had been so sure that she was alone in having a crush on him, only now to find out that he was into her, too. And that all his friends knew about it. Which meant her friends probably knew about it now as Elias had brought them in on this scheme to get them on a date.

“That’s why they were so interested in you in particular just now outside!” she exclaimed.

“What?” he asked, coming to sit down opposite her.

“Sorry. I’m working through all of this and Elias being sneaky enough to bring my friends on board for this plan.”

Yousef ran a hand through his hair and asked her nervously, “So are you okay with knowing about this? I don’t want you to feel weird about it all.”

“Oh!” Sana exclaimed realising that she had been so caught up in the revelation that he liked her and that all their friends knew that she hadn’t said anything about her own feelings towards him. “No, it’s not weird.”

She looked downwards and twisted the fabric of the tablecloth between her fingers, shy and unused to opening up, but this was Yousef and he had never made her lesser. “I like you, too.”

Peeking up at him after she said her words, she saw the smile that washed over his face and he let out a small laugh. “Really?”

“Really,” she replied, her grin coming back in face of how happy and relieved he looked.

“I was going to say something last spring,” Yousef confessed. “It’s why Elias knows. I told him because I didn’t want to ask you out and him find out afterwards. It didn’t feel right.”

“But you didn’t. Why?”

“I was going through some stuff. Struggling with my faith and whether I even believed in Islam or not and it didn’t seem fair to ask you out when I was unsure about something so important to you.”

“But I saw you at Friday prayers last week?”

“Going to see family in Turkey helped,” he said simply. “I was able to find my way through all my doubts and my faith is stronger than ever.”

His face shone radiantly as he spoke about reconnecting with Islam and she couldn’t but look upon him with awe. She often felt so alone in how she practiced her _Deen_. Spending most of her time with non-Muslim friends meant that there were lots of things she didn’t get to talk through with them, and although she always had her mum, it wasn’t quite the same thing. However, being able to talk about this with Yousef made her heart swell with love for what their religion meant to them together.

Reaching across the table to where his hand rested, she laced her fingers through his and squeezed. “I’m glad you found your way.”

“Me, too,” he replied and then grinned. “Although it didn’t help me with you.”

Sana raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“Nope. I just got even more nervous the less obstacles there were. What if I asked you out and you said no? That would crush me. I guess the boys lost patience with me. Hence this!” he said, gesturing around at the over the top room.

Sana laughed. “I can’t believe we failed so much that they had to concoct a plan!”

“Yeah, but we can be a success where it matters.”

“Matters?”

“If you actually agree to go out on a bone fide date with me. One that our friends don’t have to arrange.”

Even though they had just spent a good chunk of their time talking about how much they liked each other, Sana still blushed at his words, but she nodded and said, “I’d like that.”

Their eyes met and this time she got to drown completely in the dark depths of his gaze without anxiety making her think she was giving herself away. She got to do this as much as she wanted and the thought made her giddy and a laugh escaped her mouth. This wonderful boy was all hers.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/) should you wish


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